While organic electroluminescent (EL) devices have been known for over two decades, their performance limitations have represented a barrier to many desirable applications. In simplest form, an organic EL device includes an anode for hole injection, a cathode for electron injection, and an organic medium sandwiched between these electrodes to support charge recombination that yields emission of light. These devices are also commonly referred to as organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. Representative of earlier organic EL devices are Gurnee et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,172,862, issued Mar. 9, 1965; Gurnee U.S. Pat. No. 3,173,050, issued Mar. 9, 1965; Dresner, “Double Injection Electroluminescence in Anthracene”, RCA Review, Vol. 30, pp. 322-334, 1969; and Dresner U.S. Pat. No. 3,710,167, issued Jan. 9, 1973. The organic layers in these devices, usually composed of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, were very thick (much greater than 1 μm). Consequently, operating voltages were very high, often >100V.
More recent organic EL devices include an organic EL element consisting of extremely thin layers (e.g. <1.0 μm) between the anode and the cathode. Herein, the term “organic EL element” encompasses the layers between the anode and cathode. Reducing the thickness lowered the resistance of the organic layer and has enabled devices that operate at much lower voltage. In a basic two-layer EL device structure, described first in U.S. Pat. No. 4,356,429, one organic layer of the EL element adjacent to the anode is specifically chosen to transport holes, and therefore, it is referred to as the hole-transporting layer, and the other organic layer is specifically chosen to transport electrons, and is referred to as the electron-transporting layer. Recombination of the injected holes and electrons within the organic EL element results in efficient electroluminescence.
There have also been proposed three-layer organic EL devices that contain an organic light-emitting layer (LEL) between the hole-transporting layer and electron-transporting layer, such as that disclosed by Tang et al (J. Applied Physics, 65, Pages 3610-3616, (1989)). The light-emitting layer commonly includes a host material doped with a guest material, also known as a dopant. Still further, there has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,292 a four-layer EL element including a hole-injecting layer (HIL), a hole-transporting layer (HTL), a light-emitting layer (LEL) and an electron transport/injection layer (ETL). These structures have resulted in improved device efficiency Since these early inventions, further improvements in device materials have resulted in improved performance in attributes such as color, stability, luminance efficiency and manufacturability, e.g., as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,061,569, 5,409,783, 5,554,450, 5,593,788, 5,683,823, 5,908,581, 5,928,802, 6,020,078, and 6,208,077, amongst others.
Notwithstanding these developments, there are continuing needs for organic EL device components, such as light-emitting materials, sometimes referred to as dopants, that will provide high luminance efficiencies combined with high color purity and long lifetimes. In particular, there is a need to be able to adjust the emission wavelength of the light-emitting material for various applications. For example, in addition to the need for blue, green, and red light-emitting materials there is a need for blue-green, yellow and orange light-emitting materials in order to formulate white-light emitting electroluminescent devices. For example, a device can emit white light by emitting a combination of colors, such as blue-green light and red light or a combination of blue light and orange light.
White EL devices can be used with color filters in full-color display devices. They can also be used with color filters in other multicolor or functional-color display devices. White EL devices for use in such display devices are easy to manufacture, and they produce reliable white light in each pixel of the displays. Although the OLEDs are referred to as white and can appear white or off-white, for this application, the CIE coordinates of the light emitted by the OLED are less important than the requirement that the spectral components passed by each of the color filters be present with sufficient intensity in that light. The devices must also have good stability in long-term operation. That is, as the devices are operated for extended periods of time, the luminance of the devices should decrease as little as possible.
Ridgidized boron complexes have been used as labeling dyes in analytical and biological applications; for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,339, EP 747,448 and EP 46,861. However, boron complexes have found only limited application as dopants in electroluminescent devices. In one example, a useful class of dopants is derived from the 5,6,5-tricyclic pyrromethene-BF2 complexes and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,683,823; JP 09 289,081A; and JP 11097,180A. These materials are characterized by typically narrow emission spectra, which can result in attractively high color purity. However, the green emitting unsubstituted or allyl substituted pyrromethene-BF2 complexes exhibit relatively low quantum efficiencies of electroluminescence. In order to achieve highly efficient OLEDs, one needs to use phenyl rings as substituents thereby extending the conjugated π-system. As a result the emission wavelength typically becomes red-shifted yielding a reddish amber color, which is the shortest wavelength light that can be emitted by pyrromethene-BF2 complexes with good efficiency. In simple terms, luminance efficient green or blue-green OLEDs do not appear to be conveniently obtained with pyrromethene BF2 complexes used as dopants.
JP 2001294851A describes boron complexes of heterocycles used in an electroluminescent device. For example, materials in which one ring includes a cyclic amide or sulfonamide. However, these materials are reported to afford a narrow emission spectrum, which would not necessarily be desirable for use in a white-light-emitting device, which must emit a broad spectrum of light.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,661,023 describes electroluminescent (EL) device containing a boron dopant compound containing a bis(azinyl)methene boron complex. Such compounds, however, can be inefficient in their quantum efficiency of emission. The use of these materials is also limited by the difficulty in tuning the emission wavelengths, for example, to obtain a blue-green emission. Certain boron complex containing devices are also described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003-0198829 A1 to Benjamin P. Hoag et al.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,852,191 and 6,207,464 disclose various fluorescent boron complexes and wherein the boron is bonded to a nitrogen atom of a 5-membered heteroaromatic ring group and to a nitrogen atom of a second 5-membered heteroaromatic ring group, and wherein the 5-membered rings are further connected by a methene bridge to form a six-membered ring. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,689,494, 7,074,503, and 7,147,938 describe OLED devices containing similar boron complexes. However, certain compounds of this type can have low quantum efficiencies and it can be difficult to obtain some desirable emission colors such as a short-blue color.
There are a large number of light-emitting materials that are useful in OLED devices and that permit the fabrication of devices that emit light having a blue color, that is, light which has a wavelength between 400 and 500 nm. However, many of these materials provide a medium-blue color having a maximum emission in the range of 535-560 nm. In order to obtain devices with increased color gamut it is desirable to develop materials that have a maximum emission in the short-blue region, particularly in the wavelength region of 425-435 nm. Materials which exhibit short-blue emission are also useful in combination with other light-emitting materials, for example, they can be used with green and red emitting materials to form a white emission. A short-blue emission provides better blue-green color separation relative to a medium blue emission, which can result in improved color reproduction. Thus, it is a problem to be solved to provide a light-emitting material for an EL device that exhibits good luminance efficiency particularly in the short-blue color region.